The proejct installed 14 biogas plants. The results and impact of the project are given below:

Clean Energy Source

Biogas burns with a blue, smokeless flame. Women do not inhale smoke that was earlier their regular diet over wood fires. This reduces bronchial and allergic disorders and therefore medical bills. An additional economic benefit is that cleaner cooking utensils do not require abrasive scouring which has been seen to enhance the life of the pots.

Depending on the digestion process, the methane content of biogas is generally between 55-80%. The remaining composition is mainly carbon dioxide with traces (0-15,000 ppm) of corrosive hydrogen sulfide and water. Biogas is a very clean fuel. On burning its impact on global warming is only 10% that of liquefied petroleum gas.

Effective Substitution of Fuel Wood

The existing biogas unit capacity (3 cubic meters) replaces about 4 kg of wood per full drum (gas collector) of gas. The drum can be refilled with gas more than once a day if properly recharged with dung during summer.

Additionally, biogas is a more efficient fuel as it can be turned on or off when needed without any wastage. This allows the housewife much freedom in meeting emergency needs of, say, preparing tea when visitors arrive unannounced.

Greenhouse Gas Reduction

Potential pollutants from decomposing livestock manures are pathogens, nutrients, methane and ammonia. The major pollution problems associated with this waste are surface and groundwater contamination and surface air pollution caused by odors, dust and ammonia. There is, moreover, the concern regarding the contribution of methane emissions to global climate change.

Decomposing under natural conditions, animal waste emits methane directly into the atmosphere. According to latest research, methane is twenty-three times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of impact on global warming. In a biogas system much of the methane is collected and burned with each molecule of the combustible producing one molecule of carbon dioxide. That is, combustion reduces the global warming potential of methane by a factor of twenty-three.

Smell Reduction

By discouraging the growth of odor causing microorganisms and converting decaying material in the dung to methane and carbon dioxide, the biogas digestion process reduces odor by up to 97%. On the other hand, short-term flushed dairy manure exacerbates odor by 77%.

Pathogen Reduction

Animal manure is a potential source of organisms that are pathogenic to humans. Among these Escherichia coli is known to originate primarily through the dung of cows and buffaloes. In addition, dung also produces disease-causing organisms such as Salmonella and Cryptosporidium. It is shown that the biogas digestion process reduces these pathogens by 99.99%.

Agricultural Benefits of Biogas Slurry

Whereas fresh manure has a tendency to suppress or slow plant growth, slurry acts just the opposite. It moreover improves the water holding capacity of soil and allows better root growth.

As the digestion process converts the nutrients in the dung to more soluble forms, they are more effectively available to the soil and crops. Depending upon the time of year, digestion also increases the availability of nitrogen above the usual range by 30-60%. Spreading of the digester?s ammonium effluent on the ground causes bacteria to convert it into intermediate nitrate, which is further converted into plant-usable nitrate. Plants typically convert about 3% of the available nitrogen into plant protein as happens with mineral fertilizers. The slow-release forms of bacterial-based protein nitrogen are beneficial because they increase plant nitrogen intake. Reports from China indicate 6-20% increase in crop yield by the use of slurry.

The biogas digestion process destroys most of the weed seeds, hence fewer weeds emerge in a field fertilized with slurry from a biogas plant.

Subsidiary Benefits

No smell, no dung pats in the streets. Cleaner yards and animal pens. No dung cakes drying on walls to be used as fuel. An overall aspect of a tidy village.

Indirect benefits include job creation for fabrication, installation and maintenance of the digester equipment. The implicit multiplier effect of integrated agricultural production and processing can be two to three times the traditional production-only values.

Emergency cooking and preparing tea has become manifestly easier. The main dish is cooked on biogas, while some households still use firewood for the baking ovens.

No firewood collection means no painful scratches and cuts.

Economic Benefits

Pakistan Council of Renewable Energy Technologies (PCRET) note that one cubic meter of biogas produces energy equivalent to 0.72 liters of kerosene oil which currently sells at Rs 26 per liter. In terms of firewood, three cubic meters of gas equal four kilograms of effectively burned wood.